April, 2013

(“Of course I’d love to train with you, old pal! And since we’re such good friends now, you wouldn’t mind telling the police that I was at your house from the hours of 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. last night, would you chum?”)

Abraham Lincoln was once infamously quoted as saying, “What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.” It’s a quote I could not help but reflect on in the days following Alistair Overeem’s devastating, hype-deflating KO loss to Antonio Silva at UFC 156. To be fair, it was just as much the media’s fault for filling Overeem’s head with premature discussions of his inevitable UFC title reign as it was his own, but in either case, his arrogance was surely on full display in his lackluster performance that night. Thankfully, we learned not to do the same thing with Uriah Hall.

In either case, it appears that the slice of humble pie Overeem was served last February was not taken lightly by the former Strikeforce heavyweight champ, as he recently posted the above photo on his Instagram account showing himself alongside former K1 rival and terrorizer of the Amsterdam nightclub scene, Badr Hari, along with the following caption:

Badr Hari & me at mikes gym after a great training session. The REEM vs Badr III might just happen… In training.

If you recall, Overeem and Hari engaged in a brutal (albeit brief) pair of fights a few years back — first at Dynamite!! 2008, then at the KI World Grand Prix semifinals in 2009 –with each man emerging victorious in one bout by way of (T)KO. You can find videos of both fights here and here.

While both women hold pro records of 2-0, Torres can claim to be slightly more experienced, as she went 7-0 as an amateur compared to Rose’s 4-0 amateur record. Before her MMA career, Torres also competed extensively as an amateur kickboxer. Even at age 6, she was pretty nasty.

It’s a solid step up in competition for Rose — and we have total faith that Thug will be able to give the Tiny Tornado all she can handle. Stay tuned for more coverage on Rose Namajunas and Invicta FC 6, and check out the complete fight lineup after the jump…

Heading into last Saturday’s card-opening fight with Clifford Starks at UFC on FOX 7, former Olympic wrestler Yoel “Soldier of God” Romero wasn’t exactly held in high regards by the few MMA fans who actually knew who he was. Despite starting his career with four straight (T)KO’s, Romero’s first and only “mainstream” appearance could not have possibly gone worse. Matched up against former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion (and enemy of the State of California) Rafael Cavalcante at Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Kharitonov, the fight saw Romero fiercely evade yet simultaneously taunt his opponent until he was rightfully knocked the fudge out with 9 seconds left in the second round.

Needless to say, Romero was in need of a strong performance last Saturday if he was hoping to redeem himself amongst casual fans, or in most cases, make a solid first impression. Luckily for everyone but Clifford Starks, Romero did just that, landing a beautifully timed flying knee a minute and a half into the opening round that had Starks backpedaling for the nearest exit. A few follow up punches sealed the deal and a $50,000 KOTN bonus for Romero. Not a bad way to kick off your UFC career, but if you ask us, having the last name Romero without some sort of zombie pun for your nickname is downright criminal.

On the off chance you missed Romero and Starks’ Facebook fracas, we’ve managed to find a full video of the fight and have placed it above for your convenience. So check it out before it gets taken down.

(Vierra is standing third from the right in the black gi, next to Cesar Gracie. / Photo via MixedMartialArts.com)

Following the conclusion of UFC on FOX 7 on Saturday, many die-hard fight fans switched their dials to Showtime to watch the WBA light-middleweight title fight between rising boxing star Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez and Austin Trout. Though Trout arguably won a majority of the early rounds, the fight’s “open-scoring” system revealed that the judges were in the bag for Alvarez from the beginning. When the match was over, the scores came back unanimously for the 22-year-old ginger: 115-112, 116-111 and a completely batshit 118-109 from judge Stanley Christodoulou. As usual, we MMA types used the opportunity to take potshots at boxing’s endemic corruption.

Alright, so get a load of this shit: Late Saturday night, Ben Henderson’s brother pointed out that Wade Vierra — the dissenting judge in Henderson’s split-decision win over Gilbert Melendez — is a “Master Instructor” for the GracieFighter network, and runs a Cesar Gracie affiliate school in Roseville, California. Considering that Melendez is a well-known Cesar Gracie product, the conflict-of-interest alarms should have been ringing for the California State Athletic Commission, and Vierra shouldn’t have been allowed to judge the fight. But the CSAC didn’t catch it, or didn’t care, or hey, maybe they were in on it. Either way, Bendo’s special night was put in jeopardy.

When judging controversies happen in MMA, fans usually chalk it up to ignorance rather than corruption. But when ignorance from MMA judges and commissions is allowed to exist indefinitely, that is corruption — it’s a corruption of the sport’s legitimacy, even if nobody’s directly profiting from it. Obviously, the UFC lightweight title fight was so close that Vierra’s 48-47 tally for Melendez was much more defensible than Christodoulou’s 118-109 for Canelo. Still, the incident gave the UFC event an appearance of commission malfeasance that reflects very poorly on the promotion and the sport in general. (Was somebody paid off to allow Vierra a spot on the judges’ table? Or is the CSAC just that inept?)

It’s a good thing Henderson won. Otherwise, we might have had a scandal on our hands.

Who says romance is dead? In case you missed the end of the UFC on FOX 7 broadcast on Saturday, Benson Henderson celebrated his title defense against Gilbert Melendez by proposing to his girlfriend Maria. Now, whether you support public marriage proposals or not — I don’t, way too risky — Henderson definitely miscalculated the goodwill of the San Jose crowd, who booed the fight’s decision as soon as it was read, and booed even harder when Bendo dropped to one knee, furious at seeing the enemy walk away with a title belt and a fiance.

“I’m not perfect, I never have been,” Henderson told his lady. “But you make me happier every single day, more than any man has a right to be. I love you. Will you marry me?”

Maria accepted, and then hung out in the background for a minute while Henderson finished off the interview. By the way, this was the first time that Henderson didn’t start off a UFC post-fight interview by quoting Philippians 4:13. Let’s hope this doesn’t lead to any awkward moments at the next Zuffa Christmas party.

Since we can only post so many “U Mad?” GIFs in one day, this will have to suffice.

The UFC paid out a total of $1,518,000 in disclosed salaries and end of the night bonuses to the fighters on last night’s UFC on Fox 7, according to the California State Athletic Commission. Both former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir and current UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson took home $200,000 for their performances last night, making them the two highest paid fighters on the card. Former Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez took home the evening’s third-highest disclosed salary at $175,000.

The entire disclosed payroll is below, via MMA Junkie. Keep in mind that the following figures account for neither sponsorships and undisclosed “locker room bonuses,” nor do they include deductions for taxes, insurance, and licensing fees. Also, since there were no submissions on the card, two fighters took home a Knockout of the Night bonus.

If you think Gilbert Melendez deserves an immediate rematch, don’t bother reading the article. Just stare at this GIF for five seconds and go directly to the comments section.

If you watched UFC on Fox 7′s main event between UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson and former Strikeforce champion Gilbert Melendez, you saw an extremely close fight. In the end, Henderson walked away with a split decision victory that many fans felt should have went to Melendez. While the debate over who won the fight continues to rage on [Author Note: For what it's worth, Fight Metric stats seem to confirm that Henderson won.], the talks of an immediate rematch have already been squashed.

By the end of the post-event press conference, Dana White confirmed that the winner of the upcoming bout between Gray Maynard and TJ Grant at UFC 160 – which takes place on May 25 – is next in line for a shot at the lightweight title. At this time, there is no target date for Henderson’s next title defense. In White’s own words:

“Gray Maynard is ranked number three. TJ Grant is ranked number seven. Those guys are gonna fight at UFC 160 on May 25. The winner of that fight is gonna fight Ben Henderson next.”

UFC on Fox 7 was a violent and almost uniformly fought at a furious pace over the course of twelve preliminary and main card bouts. Eight bouts finished inside of the distance, and the main event was five close-fought, damaging rounds long.

Welterweights Matt Brown and Jordan Mein each got extra $50,000 bonus checks for putting on the fight of the night and Josh Thomson and Yoel Romero each got knockout of the night awards and 50k bonuses.

Thomson returned to the UFC in style by handing Nate Diaz his first ever stoppage loss – a second round TKO stoppage. Romero caught Clifford Starks with a flying knee and won a quick via quick TKO.

Neither Daniel Cormier nor Frank Mir won extra bonuses for their three-round heavyweight bout. Cormier did continue to show that he is a legitimate contender in the division, on the strength of his world-class wrestling skills and speed, despite being vastly undersized.

As they took the center of the Octagon, the smaller Cormier looked like he was facing his uncle in the large former two-time heavyweight champ Mir. Once Cormier got a hold of Mir, over and over again throughout the fight, it was the two-time Olympic wrestler that looked like a man fighting a child.

Cormier clinched with Mir, pressed him against the cage, let go and, on separation, unloaded nasty hooks and uppercuts to the head and body of Mir, along with elbows and knees before clinching back up and rinsing and repeating. As the fight wore on and Mir proved helpless against Cormier’s strategy, referee Herb Dean didn’t like Cormier’s dominance so he tried, as all refs disturbingly seem to be instructed to do, to give Mir more of a chance by breaking up the clinch work quickly but that couldn’t stop the wrestler from continuing to close the distance.

Mir would not be mentally broken despite eating big shots and being ground down, and he fought hard in the third round – throwing hard punches and knees. The ones that did connect, however, were absorbed by Cormier, and he just went back to pressing Mir against the cage and doing short striking work at will.

Cormier fought the smartest fight he could against a much larger, more experienced opponent. The cerebral fighter knew that the middle was his friend. Had he stayed out on the outside, Mir might have used his far superior reach to land big shots.

Had Cormier taken Mir down (he did so once, with a single leg, but did not follow Mir to the ground. Choosing instead, to let the Jiu Jitsu master stand up and eat an over hand right), he would have let the black belt do work where he was most comfortable and dangerous. So, Cormier did what he should have – control the clinch and then use his superior speed to land at will on separation.

I don’t know how long this lightweight/welterweight-heighted phenom will continue to be successful at heavyweight, but so far he can count two former UFC heavyweight champs as wins, as well as the #1 contender to the belt right now, Antonio Silva. It has been fun to watch Cormier figure out how to win fights at heavyweight.

Taking you through the action tonight is our good friend Elias Cepeda, who’s giving us round-by-round results from the UFC on FOX 7 main card broadcast after the jump beginning at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and share your own thoughts in the comments section.

Everywhere you look, chicks are headlining fight cards these days. February had Rounda Rousey defending her world title in a UFC pay per view main event and now Invicta FC has announced their latest main event – a rematch between Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos and Dutch Marloes Coenen Pretty sweet, if you ask us.

Invicta always has a women’s bout as their headliner, of course, because they are an all Women’s MMA organization. As such, they’ve created new opportunities for female fighters to make a living and show how the females are not just the fairer sex, they might also be the fiercest.

Just as cool as what Invicta is doing, the formerly all-male MMA organization, the UFC, now has one women’s division and title, with more hopefully on the way. Last week, Meisha Tate and Cat Zingano tore down the house with their fight of the night on the UFC’s last Fuel TV card. That was on the heels of February’s UFC pay per view main event title bout between Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche.